Terry C. Matalas (born 11 December 1975; age 49) is an American television writer, director, and producer, who served as executive producer and showrunner on the second and third seasons of Star Trek: Picard. He wrote several episodes of both seasons and directed two episodes of the third season.
Earlier in his career, Matalas worked as a production associate on the last two seasons of Star Trek: Voyager and all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise, where he mainly served as an assistant to executive producer Brannon Braga. He also wrote the stories for two episodes of Enterprise's third season.
Matalas also made a cameo appearance as an Enterprise-D crewman in the final episode of Enterprise, "These Are the Voyages...", identified as such in the text commentary of the DVD/Blu-ray Disc releases of the episode.
The planets Matalas and M'talas Prime, referenced in the Enterprise episodes "Dear Doctor" and "Dawn" and the latter seen in several Picard episodes, were named after him. T. Matalas, seen on background artwork in the episodes "Affliction" and "Demons", was also his namesake.
In 2012 he and writing partner Travis Fickett wrote the script for all four parts of the IDW comic book series Star Trek: The Next Generation - Hive.
Since December 2006, Matalas has been married to actress Amy Earhart, who appeared in background roles in two episodes of Enterprise and provided the USS Titan-A computer voice in the third season of Picard.
Career
Matalas is acquainted with NASA astronaut and US Naval Captain Robert Curbeam, a Star Trek fan. In January 2004, Curbeam visited the set of Enterprise as a guest of Matalas. Curbeam went on to set the record for the most spacewalks completed by a single crewmember in December 2006. [1](X)
In 2011, Matalas worked as staff writer with two episode credits on the science fiction series Terra Nova, executive produced by Brannon Braga and René Echevarria. He also wrote four episodes and worked as executive story editor on the television series Nikita between 2012 and 2013, co-executive produced by David Solomon and co-starring Melinda Clarke.
Between 2015 and 2018, Matalas and Fickett were showrunners and executive producers on the science fiction series 12 Monkeys. He wrote several episodes for all four seasons and also directed four episodes in 2017 and 2018. The series starred Aaron Stanford, Todd Stashwick, Kirk Acevedo, and Alisen Down and featured Faran Tahir, Scottie Thompson, Jay Karnes, Christopher Lloyd, and Ben Cross. Michael Sussman worked as consulting producer on this series in 2016. He also wrote scripts for Apex, The Game, and The Last American Vampire which are not in production as of 2020.
Following work as consulting producer on the television series Blood Drive (2017, executive produced by David Straiton) and Nightflyers (2018, co-starring Maya Eshet), Matalas joined the production of the MacGyver reboot series for the show's fourth season (2019-2020). Credited as executive producer and showrunner, he also wrote two episodes in 2020. [2]
Writing credits
- ENT:
- "Impulse" (story with Jonathan Fernandez)
- "Stratagem" (story)
- PIC:
- "The Star Gazer" (with Akiva Goldsman)
- "Penance" (with Akiva Goldsman and Christopher Monfette, story with Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, and Christopher Monfette)
- "The Next Generation"
- "No Win Scenario" (with Sean Tretta)
- "The Last Generation"
Directing credits
- PIC:
Star Trek interview
- Star Trek home video format special features:
- PIC Season 2 Blu-ray/DVD-special feature, "The USS Stargazer" (2022)